Monday, March 06, 2017

Galactic society is ruled by algorithms. From interstellar travel and planetary terraforming to artificial intelligence and agriculture, every human endeavor has become completely dependent upon the hypercomplex equations that optimize the activities making life possible across hundreds of inhabited worlds. Throughout the galaxy, Man has become dependent upon the reliable operation of ten million different automated systems.And when things begin to go wrong and mysterious accidents begin to happen, no one has any idea what is happening, except for a sentient medical drone and the First Technocrat of Continox. But the challenge of fixing the unthinkably complicated problem of galaxy-wide algorithmic decay is made considerably more difficult by the fact the former is an outlaw and the latter is facing a death sentence.THE CORRODING EMPIRE marks the English-language debut of Johan Kalsi, Finland's hottest science fiction author. An accomplished geneticist as well as a 6'3" ex-Finnish Marine, in THE CORRODING EMPIRE, Kalsi shows himself to be more Asimovian than Isaac Asimov himself!THE CORRODING EMPIRE is now available for preorder on Amazon with a retail price of $4.99. It will be released on March 20, 2017. And speaking of corroding empires, one can't help but note that Tor Books has slashed the preorder price of John Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire from $25.99 to $13.68, presumably due to insufferably good, think-y prose such as this:

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced. “You’re needed,” he said.“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Kiva said. She’d just finally gotten herself into a groove, so fuck Waylov (not literally, he was awful) if she was going to get out of the groove just because he walked into it.

The Third Edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says: "If anyone stands at the core of the American science fiction tradition at the moment, it is Scalzi." That explains a great deal about the precipitous decline of American science fiction, does it not? The award-winning McRapey is, we are frequently informed, the very best that 29-time Best Publisher Tor Books and mainstream science fiction has to offer. That may be true. Nevertheless, from concept to cover, from title to text, THE CORRODING EMPIRE is a very clear and public demonstration that the Castalia House team can do what they do, and do it better, even as an in-house joke in our copious spare time.

After all, what would be more amusing than for THE CORRODING EMPIREto outsell and outrank The Collapsing Empire? This isn't a lame Bored of the Rings-style parody, it is, quite to the contrary, a legitimate Foundation-style novel that effectively demonstrates how hapless Tor's latest imitative mediocrity is by comparison.

The first number produced by the extrapolated algorithm was off by one-ten billionth. There were nine zeros behind the decimal point. It was a tiny error, all but impossible to detect unless one was looking specifically for it.The second number was off by twice that. Two in ten billion. Or, rather, one in five billion. One might more reasonably fear being struck by lightning. On a cloudless day. Indoors.And yet, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the size of the error that was relevant so much as the fact that it existed at all. Somehow, he concluded, even though it was impossible, the data set must have become garbled. Garbage in, garbage out. Geist had run the extrap-algo more than a million times in the past month, using it to check and and recheck Orland’s agro-surveys. But there was no denying it. Somewhere, somehow, something had introduced an unknown variability into the process, but whether it was to be found in the data or the equations, he did not know.

a very clear and public demonstration that the Castalia House team can do what they do, and do it better, even as an in-house joke in our copious spare time.John Scalzi truly is an inspiration to new writers everywhere.

Did you apply your Hugo-nominated editing skills to this, or is it [REDACTED]'s work unassisted?

It has always occurred to me that Scalzi has never been part of a team OR a relationship which had a natural sexual dynamic.

The type of weird sexual casualness that he writes about in his snippet is poison to teams and organizations with a hierarchy. Everyone in a military setting knows this, it's why every effective military force for 1000 years has had extensive rules about the types of relationships that are acceptable.

And you can also tell from his writing about sexual encounters that he's projecting wildly. There is almost certainly a chore-list associated to Scalzi getting to enjoy the company of his wife.

Do the Finns have a navy? I would think having one would be a requirement to having marines. In any case, it's going to be difficult to evaluate the quality of the writing without knowing the details of Kalsi's lawn.

In any case, I bought it. What's one more post-retirement skipped meal?

Please tell me Mr Kalsi started this novel as a joke last month and has already finished, that would be icing on the cake.

It was January, but otherwise, can confirm. It's actually rather good. It certainly makes more sense than FOUNDATION ever did, and even has an amount of depth to it, given the obvious analogy to today's highly fragile techno-societies.

The old question was: who guards the guardians? The new question is: who decodes the self-coding algorithms?

And speaking of, is there any interest in a CH package tour to the con? Airfare from New York or Boston or such, hotel, transfers, hooker/casino options, the usual? If there is, I could make inquiries.

I've always wondered when watching/reading about galaxy spanning empires, how does the time differential work?I mean Time and gravity is interlinked right?So, the denser the gravity the swifter the procession of time likewise the less gravity the slower time lapses. I mean space is far stranger than the dumbed down tv shows depict. Therefore It would be almost impossible to travel accurately based on a clock or calendar when skipping planets. Also since in order to displace space one needs to also have a value of time, that is to say if you plan on travelling 20 light years you need to know not only the exact coordinates you wish to arrive at, other wise you might choose to be in the space occupied by a planet/asteroid or other spacecraft etc but also the exact time of arrival or you might again find yourself in the wrong place. If that's true then your also time traveling. Therefore you could theoretically move not just to any point in the galaxy but to any time aswell.I've always wondered why no one mentions that space travel is nothing like an intercontinental flight but most people complain and get confused regarding time zones yet no mentions this phenomena in sci fi which is meant to explore these weird and wacky things.

Visited a San Francisco library recently. Always check out the SciFi section. Sure enough, every single Scalzi book, in hardback, was proudly displayed. Along with every other SJW book that has been in recent news, especially the Hugo winners. They have been kept in "like new" condition. All of them. Found one book (ONE) by Asimov. dog-eared. Two other books by Orson Scott Card. Beat up. This has been the case every time I visit any of the branches.

Think about it. In a SJW infested city, even they don't read the crappy SJW books, so they are always on the shelf and always in great condition. Looking online, they have the masters and plenty of their books, which you can request. But usually only one copy among dozens of libraries, and you have to request and wait, and wait and wait for it to come. Years after they were published.

Libraries have huge drives to get more people to come in a read books. And I know they track how often books are checked out. And yet in the Science Fiction section, they'd rather drive the narrative than stock the shelves with books that people want to read.

I pity the young reader who starts reading one of the masters, and then picks up one of the available SJW crapfests because the cover looks interesting, and it is the only type available when he returns the really good one. And with one or two books, decides that he really doesn't like science fiction or fantasy that much.

@Dyskord:It does get touched on in a numbervof stories. I've thought one of the first and best stories to address that issue specifically was Haldeman's The Forever War. The idea of leaving first with older technology and arriving later that someone who left later with newer technology, and then arriving after events had already occurred was interesting.

Galactic society is ruled by algorithms. From interstellar travel and planetary terraforming to artificial intelligence and agriculture, every human endeavor has become completely dependent upon the hypercomplex equations that optimize the activities making life possible across hundreds of inhabited worlds. Throughout the galaxy, Man has become dependent upon the reliable operation of ten million different automated systems.

If anyone here is so inspired by the newest Marine bad ass, Finnish style (mainly the Swedish speaking residents of Finland) and you want to LARP in style a mil surplus outfit called Varusteleka has some awesome Finn camo to outfit yourself.

Well, Imma not gonna lie yo--not since Mizz Lorraine Hobbs found out the Communist Party of America won't see a nickel till the show hit syndication has I been so dispossessed to see that duh JOHN SCALZI UNFINISHED ASIMOV PROJECT ain't been up for no shortlist for the Oscar Hubos nor nothing!

Im'ma seriously contemplating then that we need to write the JOHN SCALZI UNFINSIHED SHAKESPEARE PROJECT, based off o the Brittanicus of John Racine (das raciss, but a nagger gotta make some coffee sometime), as well as the tribute album whose drafts I found last night while I was trying to get an index card outta the crack o ma ass called SPACE RAPTOR BUTT TRIBUTE or maybe SPACE RAPTOR BUTT SONNETS yo.

Peace and all that but lend me some bread yo vanilla shakes. Naggar got overhead!

If you are planning to make an argument that for an American audience, "Marine" is short for member of US Marine Corps, then please note where the ex- prefix is. He is ex Finnish marine, not Finnish ex-Marine.

When questioned about why they didn't mention anything about a Finnish sense of humor, the same people just looked at the questioner strangely, as if they heard something completely out of the bounds of human comprehension.

My acclaimed book JOHN SCALZI UNFINISHED ASIMOV PROJECT: DOOM done covered all about Trantor, and trannies, and muh daughter can dumbbell more than I, and uh hole lot of otter materials, plus in the front of all this excitement I aint already forgot to tellz you all THAT I BE FINISH TOO!!

Now it done seen to me somebody of y'all be getting Finnish up on appropriating my John Scalzi parody IDENTITY, which is a snowflake of one not transcribable to any other reappropriated identity toward Caswtellya, i'mma have to consider severely my options to SUE SOMEBODY.

"Did they make sure to turn around all of the romance novels written by a man under a female pseudonym? Or did they just assume the author's gender based on the name on the cover?"

Now whud chu talkin bout NOW, huh willis? I is a womun of collar an dontchoo LYE at me!!!

"When questioned about why they didn't mention anything about a Finnish sense of humor, the same people just looked at the questioner strangely, as if they heard something completely out of the bounds of human comprehension."

That's because people on the receiving end of the Finnish sense of humor tend not to survive.

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced.

"I'll prove to that snotty 6th grade English teacher that grammar, syntax and coherence are only for alt-right frog rapists! And I'll use "fucking", because I'm a naughty little b-, uhh, serious, edgy writer!"

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced.

"I'll prove to that snotty 6th grade English teacher that grammar, syntax and coherence are only for alt-right frog rapists! And I'll use "fucking", because I'm a naughty little b-, uhh, serious, edgy writer!"

At the very least, it's quite obvious that this Kiva Lagos broad is a manjawed lawyercunt type.

I feel I must belabor the fact. How do you know for sure your children are half-Finn? Rvermibd your full-Finn wife, according to Merkel, their Finn half could really just be German but not yet have fully realized it yet.

How do I know for sure my children are half-Finn? My friend, we're all just children of the universe, citizens of this backwater of the Galaxy, delusional in our self-identification as earthlings and Germans and what-have-you. But such delusions are necessary. Personally, I feel that I am a nascent half-Elf half-Hobbit half-Rohirrim, not fully realized until I step foot in New Zealand and claim my birthright. Whereupon, my children will not only be half-Finnish, but will fully realize their half-half-Elf-Hobbit-Rohirrimness. I realize that does not answer your question as such, but as Tom Bombadil once said, dreams do come true if you wish hard enough.

Personally, I feel that I am a nascent half-Elf half-Hobbit half-Rohirrim, not fully realized until I step foot in New Zealand and claim my birthright. Whereupon, my children will not only be half-Finnish, but will fully realize their half-half-Elf-Hobbit-Rohirrimness.

Goodness gracious! Your children will not only be humorless homebound people with an ancestry in horsemanship, but they'll also be half-elf, half-hobbit, and half-Rohirrim too!

A not-exactly new film I watched just last night, "Infini" delved somewhat into this time-dilation dilemma. In it, people in the future use what is called "slipstreaming" to travel enormous distances by way of communicating their atoms...somehow. I think.No matter. In this one, a few minutes back on Earth is a few days when traveling to a planet with far more G-forces than Earth-a planetary body that is promixmal to a black hole, say. I for one appreciate the rare film or series which explicitly instructs the viewer to not give it much thought, like Futurama. But it's the kind of thing that nags the brain mercilessly. The future should be interesting to say the least. Someone has to figure out all this shit if we are to explore the cosmos.

I read a short story-can't for the life of me remember the title-where the first ever interstellar pioneer space travelers were being passed on the way to a star system. The technology of the Earth they had left behind kept advancing, with speeds of space vessels getting faster and faster back home. By the time the pioneers reached the planet they'd set out to discover, it was already lit up like Times Square-with humans who'd passed them years before, and settled, ahead of them. Always wondered why no one had bothered maybe, idk, pulling over and giving the original pioneers a lift.